Today some 80 million people worldwide claim Irish ancestry, including an estimated seven million Australians. For St Patrick’s Day, we take a look at the story of the destitute Irish orphans who arrived in Australia 170 years ago at the height of the Great Famine.

Turkish migrant¸ Sükran Adasal was just 19 years old when she and her husband Halit embarked on a belated honeymoon to an island continent on the other side of the world. Travelling under the Australia–Turkey Migration Agreement, the young couple’s thoughts were filled with hope for a new future.

In the 1940s, a Dutch East Indies family who had been evacuated to Australia during World War II found themselves under threat of deportation. The infamous court case that ensued was an important step towards overturning controversial legislation banning non-European immigrants.

Paul Kwok belongs to the 25th generation of a family that can trace its ancestry back to the early 13th century, before the Mongolian leader Kublai Khan founded the Yuan dynasty and conquered China. Paul registered his grandfather, Gock Quay, on the Welcome Wall to honour the first member of his family to set foot in Australia in 1890.

During the 20th century, thousands of unaccompanied British children were sent to far-flung parts of the Commonwealth as part of government-sponsored child migration schemes. One of these was Jim Stone, whose childhood hardships in a farm training institution did not prevent him from coming to love his adopted country.

In November 1949, 24-year-old Leni Janic left her German homeland with her husband and baby son, hoping a new life in Australia would help to heal the scars of a childhood plagued by poverty, hardship and the devastating legacy of war.